BB Chronicles

A Music-related blog containing information and commentary of my favorite music, as well as some choice downloads of quality, hard-to-find music (unofficial releases, ROIO's, concert bootlegs, etc.) available on the web.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Taking a short Holiday break from the Progressive Rock features: It's the Christmas season and time for another of my biennial Christmas compilations (because every year is just a bit too much for this type of thing, every other year just about right). This year I've got a another wonderful overstuffed hodgepodge of eclectic selections for your seasonal enjoyment. This 2018 edition highlights cuts from several new holiday releases (2017-2018) from popular artists, including Eric Clapton, Michael McDonald, The Mavericks, Ingrid Michaelson, and Cheap Trick, as well some oldies, classics, and a healthy dose of power pop. A few of the traditional Christmas songs are included, but (as usual), the bulk are non-traditional. One mini-theme this year embraces some attempts to raise previous novelty songs to full-fledged serious Christmas fare, as with The Chipmunks' 'Christmas Don't be Late' (done as a ballad by She & Him), SNL's cheesy 'I Wish It Was Christmas Today' (with full rock treatment by Cheap Trick), The Beatles fragment 'Christmas Time is Here Again' (fleshed out as a mashup with 'Flying' and "Baby You're A Rich Man' by The Weeklings), and Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody' (polished up into a power pop beauty by Sloan). Also included is a nod to my recent progressive rock features, with a couple holiday tracks from Yes veterans Jon Anderson and Chris Squire, as well as a holiday remembrance to the departed Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Also, I have to give a special Thank You (and apology?) to Angelo from the Power Pop Criminals blog, because I leaned heavily on (stole?) several tracks from his own 2017 Power Pop Christmas Compilation (Very Merry Christmas), as he really knows Power Pop and does these things so very well (with inclusion of great songs by bands I never would have known), so great job there (and check his blog for all the previous years of great compilations and other stuff). Being pressed for time, I put this together really quickly, but I think it turned out great (at least I am really enjoying it). Anyway, hope you all check this out and enjoy it. Merry Christmas to all and wishes for a very Happy Holiday season!

One other note: I've always thought Stevie Wonder's 'What Christmas Means to Me' was a great contemporary Christmas song that has been underappreciated and underutilized (few covers). So, I was delighted to see it get some respect and inclusion in multiple new Christmas releases this year, including new versions done by Pentatonix, John Legend, and Michael McDonald, and intended on including the best of these new versions on my new compilation. However, after hearing them, none quite captured the essence and spirit (or coolness) of the original version, so I (of course) went back and included the original 1967 Stevie Wonder version instead. Sometimes you just can't improve on the original.

Continuing with virtuoso progressive guitarist Steve Hackett: After the success of Spectral Mornings (1979) and its subsequent tour, Steve followed up with Defector (1980), which became his highest charting album in the UK. After that he followed with somewhat of a change of pace, with Cured (1981). First, for Cured, Steve changed his backing band, keeping only keyboardist Nick Magnus (and his brother John) from the previous group, and used mostly programmed drum tracks throughout (It was essentially a multi-layered duo of Hackett and Magnus on most songs). In addition, although previously Steve had mostly relied on other vocalists to sing lead, he did all the lead vocals himself this time. And although Cured still displayed plenty of progressive rock, it also featured shorter songs and a more upbeat pop-rock style. The result was a refreshing change of pace providing many new songs and more emphasis on vocals. For the Cured tour, Steve added a new bass player and drummer, and hit the road. The show featured here is a great soundboard recording from his 1981 American tour, and in addition to popular songs from the earlier albums, Steve added 4-5 new songs from each of The Defector and Cured albums, resulting in a great show and great song selection. I added an additional Cured song from another show on the tour as a bonus track, as this song was only played at a limited number of shows.

Moving on from Mike Oldfield, here we have another exceptional and innovative progressive rock guitarist who had his own unique outlook, vision, and direction for his music throughout his career. Steve Hackett, best known as guitarist (and songwriter) for Genesis from 1970-1977 (their golden years), also has had a stellar subsequent solo and collaborative musical career, pursuing many musical styles and directions, from progressive and straight-forward rock to classical, jazz, blues, and everything in between. Steve was a major part of the classic period of Genesis, writing and performing on all the albums from Nursery Cryme (1971) through the Seconds Out Live Album (1977). After recording and releasing his own solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte (1975) while still a member of Genesis, and enjoying the freedom and creative development it provided, he started to feel constrained by his more restricted role in the band. Wanting to explore more and varied musical styles and feeling frustrated with the band not incorporating and using enough of his ideas and songs, he left near the end of 1977 (and although many Genesis fans point to the loss of Peter Gabriel in 1975 as the critical change for the progressive status of the band, I would argue that the band weathered that change fairly well, and that it was the loss of Steve Hackett in 1977 that radically changed the direction of the band to a more pop-oriented style). Steve's first album after leaving Genesis was Please Don't Touch (1978), which was recorded in the U.S. and featured various guest artists and session musicians, including vocalists Steve Walsh (Kansas), Richie Havens, and Randy Crawford, as well as drummers Phil Ehart (Kansas), Tom Fowler, and Chester Thompson, and violinist Graham Smith (Van der Graaf Generator). However, for his first solo tour (1978) to support the album, he needed to put together a touring band, which consisted of his brother John Hackett (flute), Dik Cadbury (bass), Nicj Magnus (keyboards), John Shearer (drums), and Pete Hicks (lead vocals). This core group of musicians went on to be his recording band for his next two albums, Spectral Mornings (1979) and Defector (1980), as well as his touring band. Spectral Mornings, in particular, is an excellent album, and one of his most popular, with a variety of eclectic and progressive songs and styles. Featured here are some performances from the Spectral Mornings tour (1979). The FM broadcast from the Reading Festival performance is very good, but unfortunately pretty short (around 45 min), so I have supplemented that with some bonus tracks from the same period, from the FM broadcast of the Drury Lane London show, and a couple tracks from a 1978 Paris show, to round out the concert to a full CD length.

Note: For some reason, the original bootleg of the Reading show (titled 'I Know What I Like') was terribly tracked, with the songs 'Every Day', 'Tower Struck Down', and 'Spectral Mornings' split and broken up into incoherent pieces. An additional track, 'Octagon' was also indicated between 'Every Day' and 'Tower', but this was actually just the ending part of 'Every Day', whereas it should have been 'Optigan' (named after the Optigan rudimentary synthesizer used), which was briefly played at the beginning of 'A Tower Struck Down'. I found these tracking discrepancies very annoying, so I have fixed the tracking and put the songs back together properly, which resulted in there now being 7 songs instead of 8 (but the entire show is included).

To wrap up this brief look at Mike Oldfield's career: As the eighties wore on, and with relentless pressure from his record company to make more commercial music, Mike did what he could to balance his musical and artistic goals with pop song limitations, but harbored increasing bitterness, resentment, and feuds with Virgin regarding his music. The success of the pop aspects of Crises (1983) and Discovery (1984) only made things worse as Virgin pushed even harder for more pop/rock songs with 'hit potential'. This resulted in even less room on Mike's subsequent albums for his trademark extended instrumentals, culminating in Earth Moving (1989), which consisted entirely of short pop songs and no instrumentals. Not surprisingly, this album is generally considered the lowpoint of Mike's career. Fed up by the label's interference in his music, Mike rebelled and just wanted out of his contract, and for his next album, Amarok (1990), Mike purposely made an album that Virgin (and owner Richard Branson) would hate. He went back to his full album long-form instrumental, but in this case also made it more disjointed and experimental and impossible to subdivide into 'singles' (He even included a literal F-U to his record company, as an embedded morse code message of 'Fuck you RB' referring to Richard Branson. The album was released and progressive fans hailed it as a return to form for Mike and one of his greatest works. Virgin was less impressed, and if Mike was going to do an instrumental album, they wanted a sequel to Tubular Bells, but Mike refused. He finished out his his contract with Virgin with a hastily put together mixed bag album of different pop/rock songs and styles (Heaven's Open (1991), and then he was free again to do the music he wanted. His first album with his new label (Warner Bros.) was the long-awaited sequel to Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells II (1992), just to rub it in to his former label. It was a remarkable re-imagining of the original, taking the same themes and structure and doing different variations and extrapolations on them. In subsequent Warner albums, he explored new and varied musical styles, from a softer new age sound on a concept album based on an Arthur C. Clarke novel (Songs of Distant Earth-1994) to Celtic themes (Voyager (1996) to an all-guitar album (Guitars-1999). He also did another sequel to Tubular Bells with Tubular Bells III (1998). His career has continued to explore varied musical styles but he always also returns to the ethereal long-form instrumentals of his early albums. Most recently, Mike released a long-awaited sequel to Ommadawn, Return to Ommadawn (2017), which has received much praise and acclaim. The show featured here is from 1999 and consisted primarily of sections from his recent albums Songs of Distant Earth, Guitars, and a nearly complete Tubular Bells III, in addition to a couple of his singles and 'Ommadawn'. A very nice show to highlight his 1990's work, and to cap this look at the fantastic and innovative musician that is Mike Oldfield.
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Following his successful 1981 European tour, Mike Oldfield returned to the studio to work out how to better juxtapose his favored extended instrumentals along with some more pop-friendly songs and vocals. And with his next album, Five Miles Out (1982), Mike achieved
more of a balance between these opposing forces, fashioned some genuine
rock songs (as well as a bit more progressive rock), and released his
best album of this period, and even sang some lead vocals himself for
the first time. The album cracked the British top ten for the first time
since Ommadawn, and even had some singles success with 'Five Miles Out' and 'Family Man' (which would later be a hit for Hall and Oates), with Maggie Reilly again contributing some stellar vocals. Following a similar format (Side one - single extended instrumental, side two - shorter pop-rock songs), Crises (1983) was even more successful, climbing to #6 in the UK and near the top of the charts throughout Europe and Scandanavia, due to the success of the singles 'Moonlight Shadow' and 'Shadow on the Wall'. The album again featured vocals by Maggie Reilly, as well as additional guest vocals from Jon Anderson (Yes) and Roger Chapman (Family). 'Moonlight Shadow' (vocals by Maggie Reilly) became the biggest hit (single) of Mike's career. However, rather than being pleased with this success, Oldfield's record label (Virgin) used this only to increase the pressure on Mike to write more 'pop hits', rather than his preferred instrumentals. Thus, on Discovery (1984). more shorter pop songs were included and only a single (shorter) instrumental. Barry Palmer (formerly of Triumvirat) sang vocals on some tracks, as well as Maggie Reilly again. Although containing some good songs, overall a less impressive and less successful album than either Crises or Five Miles Out indicating diminishing returns with too many of the 'pop' style songs. Here is a fine concert from this period, from the Discovery Tour, which features the complete albums of both Crises and Discovery, as well as several songs from previous albums Five Miles Out and QE2, but only a shortened 'Tubular Bells Part 2' to represent his earlier work.

More from Mike Oldfield! Despite his early phenomenal success, by the end of the '70's, as the popularity of progressive rock among the general public was declining, Oldfield's albums also saw declining sales. And his last album, the double album Incantations (1978), which consisted of a single 72 minute song broken into 4 sidelong parts and took 3 years to release, was his weakest and least warmly received (even many Oldfield fans thought it a bit too dull and repetitive). Thus, Oldfield was under increasing pressure from his record company to deliver more popular music and move up the charts. Thus, on his next several albums Oldfield mixed his longer instrumental-oriented tracks with a series of shorter, more pop-friendly tracks, as well as including cover songs and more traditional vocals (with lyrics). The first of these albums was Platinum (1979), with side one a long-form instrumental (but broken into 4 separate parts), and side two containing shorter songs, some with vocals (by Wendy Roberts). However, there was another change that also occurred around this time. During the recording of Incantations, Mike began undergoing assertiveness training, which helped him with his confidence, personal interactions, and anxieties about performing live. Thus emboldened, in 1979 Mike went on his first full-fledged tour to support his albums. The next album, QE2 (1980) followed a similar format, and marked the first time Mike worked with vocalist Maggie Reilly, and the beginning of a successful partnership. But this change in style for Mike was not initially very well-received, with the more progressive fans feeling somewhat betrayed and accusing Mike of selling out, and pop audiences just were not really embracing his quirky songs and style. However, the extensive 1981 European tour that followed was very successful and helped expand his audience, and several excellent recordings exist from this tour.
Here is a wonderful show from Mike's 1981 European Adventure Tour, a superb soundboard recording featuring some unique arrangements of Oldfield's signature long-form tracks as well as some of the newer shorter tracks from recent albums, and featuring a crack supporting band and vocals from Maggie Reilly.

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